Supervisors Express Higher Levels of Workplace Negativity Than Staff Members - Reasons Behind This Discrepancy Significance Explored
Modern workplaces tend to underestimate the importance of managers, often burdening them with immense pressure and high expectations. These unsung heroes are crucial for organizational success, yet they grapple with their own emotional challenges in what's eerily becoming a leadership pipeline crisis.
Gallup's recent research confirms a drop in manager engagement, with much of the workforce, particularly younger and female managers, feeling disengaged. This disengagement has far-reaching consequences, affecting team dynamics, productivity, innovation, and even economic growth.
Managers today are often expected to be culturists, performance boosters, and emotional first responders, all while meeting performance targets they didn't set and using resources they don't control. It's a recipe for burnout, which is a growing concern, foretelling a "manager crash" in the near future if unaddressed.
Senior leaders need to take note that a disengaged manager today translates into missing leaders tomorrow. This situation doesn't just stem from a mental health issue; it's primarily a performance crisis.
According to Gallup, a staggering 70% of team engagement variance is attributed to the manager. Therefore, businesses need to invest in their managers beyond the generic and templated training. Support should be personalized, tailored, and closely aligned with each manager's emotional, cognitive, and professional state.
For instance, first-time managers might need emotional mentorship, safe spaces to navigate doubts and pressure, while mid-career managers might require opportunities for career re-contracting. Senior managers may benefit from peer renewal, honest reflection, and safe spaces to think.
Furthermore, the increasing adoption of AI can help alleviate the operational burdens of managers. AI can manage schedules, solve problems, and deliver unbiased data. However, humans still excel in empathy, coaching, and fostering a culture that fosters trust.
As AI absorbs more operational tasks, the differentiators for human managers will evolve. It won't be about who can track more data; instead, it will be about who can foster meaningful conversations, build trust, read the room, and facilitate challenging conversations effectively.
In essence, addressing the engagement crisis among managers isn't simply about automating away the stress. A new kind of investment is needed, one that humanizes the role of managers, recognizes their emotional load, and supports them in developing key soft skills that machines can't replicate.
[3] Gallup 2025 State of the Workforce Report https://www.gallup.com/workplace/stateoftheworkforce/
[4] Gallup 2024 State of the Manager Report https://www.gallup.com/workplace/stateofthemanager/
[5] Jim Harter, Gallup's chief workplace scientist https://www.gallup.com/workplace/247940/managers-critical-link-engagement.aspx
- Businesses should invest in tailored support for managers beyond general training, recognizing that a disengaged manager can lead to a leadership void in the future.
- As AI absorbs more operational tasks, human managers will need to focus on fostering trust, reading the room, and facilitating challenging conversations effectively, differentiating themselves from machines in the process.
